


Apostates All

by Miri1984



Series: The Blight and How It Mucked Us Up [6]
Category: Dragon Age II, Dragon Age: Inquisition
Genre: F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-12-24
Updated: 2014-12-23
Packaged: 2018-03-03 04:09:51
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 5
Words: 5,890
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2837516
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Miri1984/pseuds/Miri1984
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Varric has to give the news that Saoirse Hawke has gone on to Weisshaupt to Anders and his fellow fugitives. He decides he needs to take a bodyguard with him, and the only person qualified is Solas.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

The thing about Chuckles was… well… the thing about Chuckles, of course, was that he was nothing like his nickname at all.

I mean, he _caused_ chuckles. Sometimes, late at night, when you remembered something he’d said to Dorian or to Bull and you realised “oh _that’s_ what he meant” you’d let out a little, soft laugh of appreciation, but when you were face to face with the man… chuckles were the last thing on your mind.

“Master Tethras, you might appreciate that I’m fairly busy at the moment,” Solas said when he walked in. The room was designed to set Varric’s teeth on edge. Too tall. Round. Only the desk and the piles of books around it indicating that anyone lived there.

No bed that he could see, but of course Solas claimed he could sleep anywhere. Anyone who speculated that he was in fact, sleeping in the Inqusitor’s chambers, did not ever speculate on that in the Inquisitor’s presence. Or in the presence of the apostate. There was very little about either of them that invited gossip.

He was probably the only person Varric had never been tempted to write about.

“I wanted to ask you something,” he said. 

Solas put the book down, firmly, on his desk, and turned his eyes on Varric fully. “Really?” he said. “This is… surprising.”

“It’s kind of… personal. And urgent. Urgently personal.”

“Varric I wouldn’t think I would be the best to offer you personal advice we are hardly…” Solas paused. “Similar.”

“It’s a favour to a friend. I can’t ask Cassandra, she wants to kill me too much already, and Cullen is busy plus which Blondie knows he’s a templar and I know you know spirits and I…”

Solas had this way of looking at you that made you remember you were an idiot a long time before you could convince your tongue and your mouth from convincing everyone else that as well. “Ah,” he said.

“Why do I get the impression you know what I’m going to ask before I ask it.”

“Because I believe you are right, in this instance, Varric.” Solas smiled. “You wish me to come with you to see Anders and inform him that Hawke has gone on to Weisshaupt.”

Whatever else he was, Solas was smart.

“I can’t send him a letter, Chuckles. And I’m rather fond of my skin. You know spirits, and you know mages, and I’m guessing he’ll be more receptive to a mage than he would be to a templar in this case.”

“I would be your bodyguard?” Solas seemed far too amused by the prospect. Varric was just worried about Justice immolating him before he could get out three words.

“Yes. Yes you would. I’d be willing to compensate you, naturally, my holdings are growing even in my absence and there are people who…”

Solas laughed then, one of his genuine laughs. “I am sorry, Varric. Of course I will accompany you. I have a great deal of curiosity about this… friend of yours.”

“He’s no friend of mine,” Varric said, harshly, and Solas raised an eyebrow and Varric sighed. “Okay, so he’s a friend of mine. He means a lot to Hawke, any way, and in my books that means there has to be something redeemable about the utter bastard.”

“He upset your world order,” Solas said. “Your anger is justified. It does not, however, mean that his own was not.”

“Look, I’m a dwarf, mages and templars aren’t my thing.”

Solas stood up, doing that expressionless thing again with his face. Varric really didn’t know how Brambles could stand it.

“That is the major difficulty with all who live in this world, Master Tethras,” Solas said. “That we can blissfully ignore those who are not exactly like us.”

“You don’t make a lot of friends around here, Chuckles, you know that right?”

“If I were here to make friends, I would certainly find that statement upsetting.” 

###

“I suppose it make sense for Hawke to hide her lover in Ferelden when it was the Orlesian wardens who heard Terror’s false calling, but to keep him in the deep roads seems a little excessive.”

“He’s not being kept here,” Varric said, picking his way past a cluster of deep mushrooms. “They came here together, he stays because it’s safe. They used the deep roads as a network to get from circle to circle during the mage rebellion. Blondie hated it. He hates the deep roads as a rule, but they’re good for hiding things.”

He stepped in what he was certain was nug shit and made a disgusted noise, then had to restrain himself from snarling at Solas. He could feel the man’s smirk from three feet away, and he didn’t even have to be looking at him.

“You’re awfully comfortable in the deep roads for an elf, Chuckles.”

“I have journeyed here many times,” Solas said. “The dreams of your people are fascinating to me.”

“We don’t dream.”

“Individually, no, you do not. But the fade holds echoes of you nonetheless. Spirits and demons do not shun you quite so much as you might think.”

“That’s not very comforting,” Varric said.

“It was not meant to be.”

The thaig around them changed gradually from dull reds and browns to the lush green undergrowth that had made Cadash Thaig such a novel place, the first time Varric had visited Hawke and Anders and their small group of mage activists here. Solas placed one foot delicately in front of another, looking around at the statues and water, and Varric might almost have said that he was happy.

“Different from most of the deep roads, isn’t it?” Varric said. “That’s why Blondie can stand it.”

“I look forward to sleeping tonight,” Solas said. “But first…” Solas indicated ahead of them, where a tall mage with a somewhat elaborate staff stood watching them approach. Next to him, a pair of dwarves, one red headed and grizzled with an axe bigger than him on his back, and another lithe and sunny, balancing on the balls of her feet and rocking back and forth as they approached.

The last man was even taller than the mage, and Varric suppressed a groan.

“Oh great,” Varric said. “He would get here before me.”

“Varric you bastard,” Carver said, striding forward. “Where in the Maker’s hells is my sister?”


	2. Chapter 2

“Commander Surana caught wind of what was happening in Orlais from a friend of his,” Carver said as they sat in an abandoned house in the middle of the thaig. The small group of wardens and mages who had congregated in Cadash Thaig had few things in common with each other. Nathaniel Howe, Sigrun and Oghren had all been with the Warden during the attacks on Amaranthine — Varric knew that story well enough. Finn (whose full name was too long for Varric to bother with) had left the circle a short time before the rebellion, as had Maggie Amell, Saoirse’s circle trained cousin. Carver, of course, was just a pain in the ass who always showed up when his sister was in trouble, mainly, Varric suspected, to make his life difficult. “Only a few of us were sensible enough to take his advice and get out of the country. Stroud doesn’t attract the attention that the rest of us do, so he was the one who agreed to help Sisi with her mad plan to go and kill Corypheus again.”

“You’re all hearing the Calling?”

“Not any more,” Howe said. “Whatever you did at Adamant stopped it, thank the Maker, and it was never as strong here as it was in Orlais. I suppose there was a range limit to it…”

“The fear demon controlled a large area of the fade, but yes, it would have been stretching itself to reach this far,” Solas said. “The relatively small number of Ferelden wardens since the Blight would have meant it would hardly make the effort.”

“Except that King Alistair hearing the calling would have contributed a whole heap of chaos,” Sigrun said. “I thought it wanted chaos?”

“The fear demon cannot read minds,” Solas said. “It can glean… surface thoughts, yes, but it would have no knowledge of the status of your king, not unless Corypheus fed that knowledge to it. From what I’ve seen of him, I suspect he did not bother to find that out. The wardens were useful to him for one reason only, Ferelden was too far away for him to worry over, and as such, this motley collection of… leftovers is safe.”

“Leftovers?” Carver said, but Varric shook his head at the boy, who growled under his breath. “Where _is_ she, dwarf? She left us all here with a strict promise to be back before wintersend and it might not be hot down here but it’s sure as the black city is corrupted that it’s not snowing outside any more.”

“I have about as much control over what she does as I do over what _you_ do, Junior. She wanted me to tell you where she was going so I’m telling you. And Blondie too. I came here specifically to tell Blondie, actually, you being here is just the icing on the shit cake.”

“And you brought your elf friend here for what exactly?” Carver said, turning his gaze on Solas.

“Protection,” Varric snapped. “I didn’t know how many of you were down here, and I figured there was a good chance telling Anders about Hawke was going to end badly for the messenger.”

“Justice doesn’t tend to lash out much, these days,” Finn said. “He’s really quite reasonable most of the time, it’s only Anders who gets angry about Hawke…”

Solas eyed the mage with a little interest. “You are not a warden,” he said. “Why are you here?”

Finn cleared his throat. “The Hero of Ferelden sent me to help with Anders… condition. I know a lot of the old elven lore and I…”

Varric winced. Finn was a good kid, and he was about to get savaged.

“Oh really?” Solas said. “You’ve studied spirits and demons in the circle?”

“Not just in the Circle!” Finn said, leaning forward. “I saw an Eluvian once! There was a woman who made it work, and there were dragons, always seem to be dragons whenever something big happens these days I have no idea why…” Finn stumbled to a stop when presented with one delicately raised eyebrow. “In any case, yes, I like to think of myself as a spirit mage, Master Solas, I do understand that we’ve lost a lot of the lore and I’d be fascinated to understand…”

“What of Anders?” Solas interrupted. “Where is he? I did not leave Inquisitor Lavellan to discuss lore with circle mages and wardens.”

The wardens looked at each other, uneasy. Varric felt a sudden surge of familiarity. No matter what shitfight he ended up in the only person who ever looked happy when Anders was mentioned was Hawke.

“He’s up on the bridge,” Sigrun said eventually. “He spends a lot of time there when Hawke is away.”

Solas looked at Varric expectantly, and Varric got to his feet, grumbling slightly. Of course they weren’t going to waste time about this. That would spoil the dramatic tension.

They left the other wardens, including Finn, who was happily ensconced with a letter that Varric had brought from Dagna, and walked up the slope of the large bridge towards the massive memorial statue that overlooked Cadash Thaig. Nathaniel came with them, holding a rather beautiful bow. “Darkspawn don’t come here very often, we’ve blocked most of the entrances but sometimes they manage to break through. It’s my watch.”

“Is that a paragon?” Varric asked, looking up at the statue.

“Did your version of the tale of the Fifth Blight not include Shale?” Nathaniel said. 

“Wasn’t that the golem?” Varric asked. “I never got any firm details about it, no. Apparently it made friends with one of the wardens’ old tutors and went off to help the mage rebellion…?”

“Cadash Thaig is the home of an ancient house who gave their souls to Caradin, Master Tethras,” Solas said. “The statue is a memorial to their sacrifice. Touching and beautiful, in its own way, that your people took the time to remember. Yet no people who willingly gave themselves to slavery have ever been thanked for it.”

“We fought some golems in the deep roads,” Varric said. “You’re saying they were dwarves… that golems were people?”

“Commander Surana destroyed the anvil of the void at the request of Caradin,” Nathaniel said. “He told me the tale of it. Then he helped Shale find her true origins. Oghren was with him, if you want to ask the details, although usually all I can get out of him is swearing.”

“It is quite the gathering, you have assembled here beneath the troubles of the world, warden.”

“You don’t like wardens, Master Solas,” Nathaniel said.

“I have no reason to like or dislike them,” Solas said. 

Nathaniel’s lip twitched. “Give us time and we’ll give you a few,” he said.

At the top of the bridge a figure was sitting on the edge, looking down over the houses of the thaig. It wasn’t crowded, here, exactly, Varric knew there weren’t many people that Hawke and Anders trusted, but the ratio of wardens to non-wardens was making him a little twitchy given what had happened at Adamant.

When Anders looked up his eyes were blue and Varric scrambled back, hitting Nathaniel and stumbling. The big human steadied him, chuckling a little, even as Solas put a hand on his shoulder.

“Do not fear, Varric,” Solas said. “Perhaps it would be best if I talked to him alone.”

“Chuckles I know you can handle yourself in a fight but you haven’t seen Blondie when he’s Bluey you really don’t…”

Solas’ laugh was wry and delighted all at once. “Trust me, child of the stone. I have nothing to fear here.”

When Anders spoke, his voice held none of Justice’s boom, even though his eyes didn’t change, and Varric wondered again how little barrier there was between the two beings.

“I wouldn’t be so certain,” he said, clambering to his feet and turning to them. Varric always forgot how damned tall Blondie was, until he was close to him, until he was overwhelmed by his presence. Anders in Kirkwall had tried so hard to make himself smaller, less of a target, to avoid Templar attention, Varric guessed, and possibly even Hawke’s relentless pursuit of his wellbeing (and other things). Now, post the Chantry, things were different. The man in front of them now didn’t try to hunch down to other people’s levels, and he didn’t try to apologise for himself.

Varric could admire that. But at nights when he shut his eyes he could still see the bodies and litter strewn through the streets of Kirkwall, and he could wish that meek, sad Anders had won. That the weight he’d laboured under so hard, tirelessly driven close to madness by the spirit inside him, had crushed him before he’d had the chance to crush so much else.

Solas tilted his head up at the mage, a strange expression on his face that Varric had only seen when he looked at Ceindrech.

“Andaran atish’an, spirit,” Solas said. Anders’ lip quirked.

“Yeah,” he said. “Something like that.”


	3. Chapter 3

“Varric didn’t have to bring you,” Anders said. “I wouldn’t have hurt him. Saoirse does her own thing, it’s her way, even when it’s ridiculously stupid and I’m not going to take it out on the people who tell me about it.”

“I am fond of Master Tethras,” Solas said. “And I believe he is more concerned with making everyone he knows believe that he fears and distrusts you than he actually fears and distrusts you. He has been in the company of Seeker Cassandra for some time now.”

“Varric has every right to be angry with me,” Anders said. “They all do. I haven’t done anything worthy of their trust.”

Solas looked down at the thaig, an unreadable expression on his lips. “I should not stay long, the Inquisitor faces many challenges. But I _was_ curious about you. Tell me, can the spirit within you… can it communicate on its own? Could we… converse? I would ask it of its experiences.”

“You can ask me.”

“Forgive me, Anders, but I am far less interested in your perspective on this. I have heard many ravings of possessed mages in my time, all of them believe they are speaking on behalf of the spirits they have enslaved.”

Anders felt Justice surge forward at that implication. “If you’re trying to get him to come out because I’m angry you’re doing a good job of it,” he said.

“I am not trying to anger you. I merely wish to be certain I am getting Justice’s true opinions.”

“We’ve been joined for more than ten years, the only way I know for certain that he is speaking and not both of us is if we’re in the fade.”

Solas spread his hands and raised an eyebrow. “Well then.”

Anders’ expression was comically surprised. “You want me to enter the fade with you,” Anders said.

“Would it make a difference if I said I believe it would help both of you?”

“Not really. Are you going to try to separate us?”

“Only if Justice expresses a desire to do so. You speak of him as if he is your friend. You would not force him into this partnership if it were not something he wanted, surely?” 

Anders recoiled, shaking his head. “No. No of course I wouldn’t.”

“You do not wish to be separated from him.” Solas seemed surprised at this. “Yet you talk about how your pairing was a disaster. You have murdered countless innocents in pursuit of your cause, hurt every person you have ever loved, and yet you do not wish this to end?”

“Justice is my friend, Solas. Whatever we did, we did together. I am in the wrong here, I did not know enough before we joined, but neither did he. What we did, we did in ignorance, but you can’t deny that there would have been no mage rebellion without what we did in Kirkwall. The goal we set for ourselves… we accomplished it. Living with him is difficult, but so is living with Saoirse, or Carver, or any person.”

“You truly believe, then, that he _is_ a person.”

“I always did,” Anders said. “It just took me a long time to admit it.”

Solas seemed to hesitate, and for the first time Anders saw a hint of something other than purpose in his clear gaze. “What of Hawke?” he asked softly.

Anders shook his head. “If you want to talk to Justice we have lyrium enough to enter the fade, but I’m not going to discuss all of my personal relationships with you, Solas. I love her. Justice loves her. She loves us both. Justice might be more willing to discuss it in greater detail. Saoirse is far less likely to skin him alive for exposing her weaknesses.” He smiled a little. “She’s always nicer to him than she is to me.”

“Still. It must be difficult.”

“I don’t think I’ve ever had a relationship that I could call easy,” Anders said. “But then again, I’ve lived most of my life in the circle. Maybe if I’d spent my life as a wandering apostate things would have been less complicated.”

Solas looked down, his lip twitching a little. “Perhaps,” he said.

“So. Lyrium. We can go to my quarters and…”

“We will not need lyrium to enter the fade, Anders,” Solas said. “If you can sleep, I will find you. Both of you.”

He ran a hand through his hair. “That’s good,” he said. “Although sleeping at the moment is fraught with archdemon dreams, so just… I guess you’ve seen worse lately, haven’t you.”

Solas smiled. “Quite often,” he said. 

Anders took Solas to the house he and Saoirse had been sharing, in the brief times they’d spent more than one night in the Thaig. It was a place to rest and recuperate, not a home, and he felt a pang of hurt as he stooped to get through the door. Solas was not small for an elf, and he also had to crouch to get into the small room, where Anders bed roll lay alone on one side of the firepit, the place where Saoirse would normally have slept empty and cold. 

“I personally don’t have any objections if you want to take Saoirse’s spot,” Anders said. “It’s definitely the most comfortable.”

Solas looked around the room, curiously. “The two of you must have found these accommodations cramped. Varric told me you lived in a mansion in Kirkwall’s high town before the explosion.”

Anders remembered mornings in Kirkwall, breakfasting with Saoirse on the terrace on the rare occasions she woke in time to eat with him, or convinced him to stay long enough before descending into dark town. They had always been rushed, those breakfasts, there was always something else the two of them had to be doing, never enough time to simply talk.

In a lot of ways, they hadn’t known each other at all in those days. Only after the Chantry explosion had they taken the time out of each day to talk, to share experiences, to discover that yes, they did love each other, not just what the other represented. 

“I’ve lived in a lot of places,” he said shortly. Solas’ eyes were wry, and Anders found himself wanting not to meet them, busying himself with rolling out a spare bedroll for the apostate, wondering if he would even be able to sleep.

Solas set his pack and his staff near the doorway and sat on the bedroll Anders set out for him. Perfectly at ease. Confident. 

The man rubbed him the wrong way. “We have that, at least, in common,” Solas said.


	4. Chapter 4

He sometimes wondered if he felt more alive in the fade because he had spent more time there, if his definition of “life” was different now than it should have been, if the thousands of years of his slumber had altered him in some way so that he was flipped. The waking world was harsh and immutable, but it had its beauties, and they were seductive and they clutched at him, but the Fade would always feel more like home.

The spirit who stood in front of him still looked like Anders, the blue cracks of his possession obvious to one with mage trained sight, the deep glow of his eyes far more hypnotic than they had been in the physical world.

They stood on the bridge once more, looking out over a different thaig, where dwarves bustled about their daily lives. The thaig was in complete repair, plants that had grown wild and covered entire buildings instead neatly growing in rows of planter boxes, tended by laughing dwarf children and their mothers.

“I know you,” Justice said to him. “You were spoken of, when I was of the fade. The wanderer, they called you.”

“I have gone by many names.”

“You are not honest with your companions,” Justice said. “In our experience this does not end well.”

“I am aware,” Solas said, smiling a little even as the pain clutched at his heart. “But I am not withholding any information that will do them any good.”

Justice looked highly skeptical at that, and Solas sighed. In truth he had dissembled very little, and he suspected some of them knew more than they were saying. 

It did not matter, so long as he helped them defeat Corypheus.

“I did not come here to talk about myself,” Solas said.

“No. You came to attempt to separate me from Anders. I do not wish to be.”

Solas narrowed his eyes. “Is that because the mortal world has too much appeal for you? You and Anders both hold affection for Hawke.”

“We do,” Justice said.

Solas frowned. “These mortal trappings are not your purpose. You will be corrupted if you remain, you must see this.”

“I am already corrupted,” Justice said, and there was a hint of anger in him. “I was corrupted the moment the Baroness pulled me through into this world without my consent. Had the warden commander not offered me purpose I would have become an abomination. A walking corpse intent on killing. He gave me a purpose and I learned to love the world I was forced into.”

“The warden commander gave you a life as a warden, yet you abandoned that life when you joined with Anders.”

“Wardens are necessary, but the Blight was finished. I could do no more good in Amaranthine, and the mages were suffering.”

“Mortals always suffer. There is always injustice in the world.”

“That does not mean I should cease trying to stop it,” Justice said. He paused looking out over the thaig, then considered Solas with eyes that were too human, just as Anders’ eyes in the waking world held too much of the fade. “Do you truly believe that a spirit is incapable of growth? Have you not seen this happen before?”

Solas thought of Cole back at Skyhold. “It is very rare,” he said. “And it usually ends badly.”

“Anders and I are not yet at our ending,” Justice said. “We made one, together. He intended to die in the Chantry explosion, I could not convince him otherwise. But Hawke spared us, and since then we have reached an accommodation.”

“Hawke,” Solas said then, mouth twisting a little. “So much depends on Hawke, it seems.”

“She is a remarkable woman,” Justice said, and he sounded far more like Anders speaking of her. It made Solas uncomfortable, even as he thought about the troubled, bitter woman he’d seen in the fade and at Skyhold, her flashes of humour forced and falling flat in the face of the enormity of the terror in front of them. Varric had spoken of her as a figure from legend, but Solas had seen only a woman who was tired of losing things, at the end of her patience, willing to sacrifice herself so she need not see any more sacrifices made for her.

“You are no longer a spirit of Justice,” Solas said, finally. “Separating you from Anders would no doubt do you more harm than good.”

“We have also come to this conclusion,” Justice said. 

“May I ask, then, what you intend to do when he dies? You have already suffered through one Calling, what will happen when his true Calling takes him to the deep roads, when the taint corrupts _his_ body and by extension, you?”

The spirit looked troubled. “I do not know,” Justice said. “Mortal lives are brief, yet time seems longer when you are tied to them as I am.”

Solas considered. “When the time comes,” he said. “I will find you, if you wish. I can separate the two of you, and help you back to the fade, I am certain of this. You do not deserve to share his fate.”

Justice’s eyes narrowed. “Do you believe that he _does?_ What we did we did together. The events at Kirkwall would not have happened had we not made our bargain in Amaranthine.”

“Are you certain of that? You cannot know what could have been.”

“I know Anders. I knew him before we joined. Our merging gave him purpose even as it distorted my own.”

“Then you agree that it has changed you.”

Justice made a frustrated sound. “Wanderer, this was the entire _point.”_

Solas pursed his lips, looking back out at the thaig. Cole was a child when compared with the spirit in front of him. Twelve years, they had been joined, and yet Anders was not an abomination, and Justice was not a demon. In the long stretch of his own years, it was not a long time. Yet a spirit could be corrupted by the mortal world in a matter of seconds.

It happened all too often.

“What if I wish to share his fate?” Justice said then.

“I am sorry?”

“What if I wish to be with Anders until his end? Go with him on his Calling, help him through the worst of his corruption?”

“You cannot believe that any good would come of such an undertaking,” Solas said. “The blight, coupled with a spirit’s power _and_ that of a mage? You could become a monster worse than any broodmother.”

“Hawke would not allow that,” Justice said, and there was some of the innocent confidence in that statement that Solas saw from Cole. 

Justice was not a child, no, but he had his blindnesses. 

“Whatever you decide,” Solas said, finally, “If I can, I will try to help.”

Justice tilted his head. “Why?”

Solas’ mouth twisted in a smile. “The world is too full of demons as it is, my friend. I do not wish to see another created. I may not approve that you have chosen to deviate so far from your original purpose, but that you have done so on your own initiative… fascinates me.” 

Justice’s eyebrow twitched with uniquely _human_ humour. “I am pleased you find me so interesting,” he said. 

“I have lived a long time,” Solas said. “And seen many things. When something is unique, it should be nurtured.”

“Not all that is unique has value,” Justice said. “But I understand that you see the beauty in things you do not necessarily understand.”


	5. Chapter 5

Justice took leave and the dream lingered, leaving Solas to wander the thaig for a time, watching the ancient dwarves as they went about their business. There were very few spirits here, just enough to give him the echoes he needed to read the fade, and he wondered at that considering the concentration of mages. Usually their very presence would have attracted many powerful spirits. 

Perhaps Justice was doing more during Anders’ sleep than he had confessed.

When he woke, Anders was still sleeping, features relaxed and looking far younger in that relaxation than he did while awake. Still, he was not a youthful man, just as Hawke was nearing the middle of her years, losing the first flush of youth that carried beauty in so many mortals.

He thought of Ceindrech then, and frowned, getting to his feet and walking out of the small hut, fingers clutching his staff too tightly, anger coiling in his gut.

Anders found him there some time later, as he was looking down at the thaig and the mages and wardens who had made a home here. 

“They don’t need to stay here any more,” Anders said. “But no one is making the first move to leave. I suppose with Corypheus still on the loose we’re sticking together out of fear, mostly.”

“Will you go after Hawke?” Solas asked, not quite able to hide the residual anger crowding his thoughts.

“Yes. Carver wants to come with me but I’m going to try to convince him to stay here. The wardens at Weisshaupt are different to what he’s used to, from what Alim says, and at the moment the stupid kid is the highest ranked warden out there. They’ll try to put him in charge and I can’t imagine that ending well for anyone at all.”

“Hawke’s brother could be a force for good in the fight against Corypheus,” Solas said, then curled his lip. “Or, he could join the other wardens that Ceindrech has let loose on the world to fight demons and templars.” Anders looked at him.

“You don’t like that she spared the wardens?” Anders said. “There are still two more archdemons down there what happens when they cause another blight if the wardens are gone?”

“Humans have so little imagination,” Solas said. “You find a solution and it works at terrible cost, yet you do not bother to try to find another. No, why attempt to save more lives when we can simply sacrifice thousands to a worthless litany of honour and duty? ‘Twould have been better if she had sent them all against Corypheus’ dragon, to be crushed just as Clarel was."

Anders smiled slightly. “I’m not going to argue the case of the wardens to you, Solas,” he said. “I have my own problems with them.”

Solas too a breath. “This was what drove you to join with the spirit of Justice,” Solas said. “Because the wardens had offered you freedom with one hand and taken it with the other.”

“Pretty much,” Anders said. “Warden Commander Surana thought that because he was a mage I would be afforded the same sorts of privileges he got from the wardens, but he was never a warden so much as _the_ warden, if that makes sense to you.”

“Indeed, he is always referred to as such in the tales. It was some time before I even heard that he was an elf.”

“They tend to gloss over that bit, yes. Also the mage part.” Anders looked like he was going to add more to that, but changed his mind. “A good man, although he had his… idiosyncrasies. Justice and he… didn’t get along very well in the end.”

Varric came into view at the bottom of the bridge, waving. “That Finn kid said you were awake,” he said, panting slightly as he made it to where the two mages were standing. “Are we going back to Skyhold then? I’ve had enough of the deep roads for two lifetimes.”

“Indeed,” Solas said. “Gather your things, Master Tethras, I will meet you shortly.”

“I hope you two had fun bonding times in the fade together,” Varric said, then looked at Anders. The other mage twitched an eyebrow, head tilting to one side. 

“Yes, Varric?” He said.

“You know I said it wasn’t a good story unless the hero dies,” Varric said. 

Anders gave a low chuckle. “I remember,” he said.

Varric looked down at his hands and adjusted his gloves. “I’m…” he said. 

“Lost for words?” Anders said. “ _Short_ of a phrase?”

Varric groaned. “Okay. I’m just gonna say it. I’m… glad this isn’t a story, Blondie.”

“Thank you, Varric,” Anders said. “I miss you too.”

“She… she was…”

“She was being Saoirse,” Anders said. “We wouldn’t love her if she wasn’t, you know that as well as I do.”

“I’m sorry I couldn’t get her to stay,” Varric said. “I know you need her.”

“I’ll catch up,” Anders said. “Don’t worry.”

“I’ll meet you there,” Varric said darkly. “Can’t imagine this Corypheus thing will last much longer.”

Solas cleared his throat, and Varric nodded. 

“Be well, Anders,” Solas said. “And Justice, you as well.”

Anders had already turned to go back into the hut, presumably to start making preparations for the journey to Weisshaupt. It would be a dangerous journey for an apostate on his own. Less so, these days, he supposed, since the mage templar war had effectively ended in the Hinterlands. How odd, for this new generation of mages, to be able to travel freely in such a way.

How familiar.

“Let us be off, Master Tethras,” Solas said. “We have lingered too long in this place.”

“You’re telling me,” Varric said.


End file.
